What a Day

What a Day, what a week what a cold cold month!  My cute twin boys turned 3 today!  I can hardly believe it!  They have changed our lives forever, these past 4 years (including the twin pregnancy) have been about the hardest ever.  So the twins got sick right before Christmas, achy, fever, cough,  they we finally getting over it especially the one who was the sickest with a cough/ puke thing.  I was  so glad it looked like we were finally coming out of the sick stage and back into normalcy with the prospect of a party today, but alas #6 started throwing up last night and the washing machine died!!  Then later in the day, #7 also started puking.

Later in the day my husband wanted to get an elliptical machine at Costco. I had to go with him cause we've had trouble with the truck not starting so he wanted to leave it running so I had to go to stay with it, anyway, we took the 3 littlest ones cause  I thought they'd go to sleep on the way-- no such luck-- # 7 puked, so I cleaned that up and gathered a grocery bag full trash in the van and a grocery bag full of puke clothes, and I cleaned out my purse.  Then, I was going to feed the baby and fund that he had had a MAJOR blowout, so I had to change him, but the wipes were frozen because we've been parking in the driveway so the kids can run around in the garage -- anyway-- that was fun and Costco was sold out!!  We had gone a couple weeks ago, but Costco had closed early "due to unforeseen circumstances"-- anyway my husband is pretty sure he has uncanny bad luck.  I think maybe his expectations are too high-- you know expecting that someone will be open during business hours and wanting to sell things they have listed for sale.

So we went over to Lowes for a washing machine.  I found some baked cheese puffs which made the twins happy and the baby w happy, the van was nice and toasty.  Our new washer will hopefully be delivered this week.  When we got home, my husband washed to pukey clothes in the sink, and we found that the 5 yr.old had been so enthralled with his wii game that he hadn't quite made it to the toilet.  Wow!  Oh then #7 had some diarrhea.

We postponed the b-day party to a day they will be able to enjoy it.  Now we are watching Diego, Dora and Thomas the Train.  I will miss my sweet babies when they grow, but I will enjoy not cleaning up gross bodily fluids and I will enjoy getting enough sleep!

Happy Birthday Boys!  I love you!

More on pants from other writers

This is what my husband posted on FB and I totally agree here:

I for one am not clamoring for women to get the priesthood. I think there is an epidemic in the church of meanness, and it comes out in different ways. It comes out in how a lot of women are treated in the church because they are women. Obviously there is an imbalance of power in the church, but that's not necessarily a problem, but it gets abused like everything else.

I think some people think that if women had the priesthood the imbalance would be less, and the meanness would be reduced. But the real problem is that people are mean. 

So the real conversation is really: is there really a problem in the church with how people are treated? I've seen some arguments that boil down to: if it hasn't happened to me then it's not a problem, or you are blowing it out of proportion. Similarly: if you do have a problem, you are the problem and you need to repent. Or: I don't think it's a problem so you shouldn't think it's a problem.

Women wanting to wear pants one sunday to show they thought there was a problem I think revealed there is a problem, considering how people reacted to all this. It really struck a nerve. Maybe some self-check is in order before we argue about women getting the priesthood. But maybe we ought to be empathetic and help them feel more included and loved.

And this was posted by a blogger in England-- I wish I could join them and wear nice
 slacks to church tom orrow, but being in the heart of Utah and mormondom, I don't think 
it's wise to do so yet-- People would probably see it as me attacking them not as me 
showing support for those feeling minimized as women. 

http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/12/14/less-than-1200-words-on-pants/ http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/12/14/less-than-1200-words-on-pants/

Women wearing pants to church

I never understood Mormon feminists.  The term seemed like an oxymoron to me.  I grew up as a Mormon and I just never questioned the order of things.  It just seemed to me that the way things are run at church was just the way things are and should be.  I loved the scriptures, I had a personal relationship with my Savior and I felt good when I went to church and enjoyed good comraderie there.  Fast forward a few years to the past couple years especially as I have recorded somewhat on this blog the terrible experience of being shunned at church, and then finally understanding the nuances of Utah culture and realizing that I am very much on the outside of the dominant culture here even though I strive to live the gospel to best of my ability and I have a testimony of it.

Not feeling a part of your own religion, not feeling loved and acceptance at church is awful. People being mean, putting you down and ignoring you and your children is awful, and it is especially awful when they are the very people who should be supporting, loving and helping you.  It is not just the absence of comraderie, but the feeling of having to defend yourself and your position constantly.  So although, I have not had the same feminist concerns in the church that many feminists have had, I can relate to their feeling of being a "second class citizen" in the church, and not feeling a sense of belonging there.  This is really hurtful because you know that that is not what Jesus would do, you want to have friends in the gospel and do the right things, but there is no way to voice concerns without putting yourself at jeopardy of losing good standing in the church which would lead to being even more on the outside and shunned or ignored even more.  It all depends on the leaders of your ward.  If you have good leaders who sincerely care about you and the other members of the ward, then you'll be alright, but if you have a bad leader-- and that doesn't mean they are all bad people- although there definitely are those-- just check the news-- then you are stuck.  The only way out is to move away and hope to find a place with decent people in leadership positions.  If you are not in a leadership position-- forget about having any influence as to the way things go at all.  Even if the leaders make dumb decisions about things-- there is absolutely nothing you can do until they are released.  And then you just have to wait and hope that the next leader will be better and will maybe care about you and the other members of the ward, and at least try to address any concerns you may have.

I really wish we could just pick which ward to go to.  A healthy dose of competition and free market enterprise would be so good in this regard I think.  Then maybe people would be nicer.  I think people in the church are mean because they know there is nothing you can do about it.  If you stop coming then you miss out on the sacrament and the good things at church and you are labeled an apostate, not valiant in the cause of truth. If you stay, you have to support them and not be offended.  Anyway.  the sense of a loss of power is huge-- and I think that is what the feminists are trying to change-- their focus is on giving women in general more of a say.  However, even if women had more of a presence we would still be at the mercy of the individual leaders.  If they are rotten-- bad news.  Lay members would still have little say about any of the goings on at church. 

The feminists thought that wearing pants to church one Sunday would be a way that they could show their wards that not everyone thinks about things the same way and that maybe people would start being a little more respectful of that and eventually be more willing and able to accept differences.  What they didn't expect was the huge backlash and all the mean comments.  The comments got so bad on the Facebook events page that Facebook themselves pulled the page!!  I am embarrassed to be associated with such mean people-- it even got to the level of saying that the feminists should be shot in the face.  Unbelievable!!  I hope they bring the page back so we can all see the true colors of these commenters.  These are not the actions and words of loving Christ like people.  I am very disappointed.

My hope is that we Mormons-- leaders included-- will do some introspection and be more loving and tolerant of those who are different.  There is nothing in the scriptures about what to wear to church.  There is nothing in there that says we should go for 3 hours every Sunday and have all these programs.  Maybe we need to go back to the bare bones basics of love, kindness and respect for each other for we are all children of God.  I know that this is in God's hands.  I hope that lots of good will come of this.

My husband's thoughts on Romney and the Election

I expect that after the dust settles someone will write an op\ed that says what I think, but until then I'd like to give my thoughts.

The Romney candidacy has been a bigger deal for members of the church than most people think, and that's why there's so much lamenting about his loss. Mitt Romney was one of our best examples. He represented what we members hold up as a good member: he was Bishop and Stake President, he's got five boys and is a family man, he served a mission, he's proud of his faith, he's successful in business and politics. He's even good looking.

A lot of hope was wrapped up in him and excitement for this guy (not Harry Reid or some right-wing crackpot) to be the guy we wanted to present on the world stage as being a model of us. We'd have an opportunity to explain our religion finally and when people would see the Romney's and their good example they would be curious to learn more. Missionary work may even pick up. There was an article in the Deseret News that basically said all this a couple of days ago.

So when the country got to take a look at Romney and the church it didn't really go as hoped. People and reporters asked hard questions about us. It wasn't misunderstanding. On the contrary, they understood and asked up to clarify. The church, Public Affairs especially, responded quite often like they would to members asking questions, with half answers and "don't worry about that" type responses that might work on members who feel the social and spiritual pressure to not push it anymore, but that don't work on others. Like when the church said that no one who says disparaging remarks about people because of their skin color is a true disciple of Christ, and then CBS brings up Brigham Young quotes from the Journal of Discourses that does just that and Public Affairs responds "it is what is it." that's not convincing.

So Mitt Romney became each member of the church in spotlight by proxy. We wanted to succeed, to impress, because it represents us. While a lot of other people see in Romney so little concern for others, arrogance and condescension, lies and misrepresentations, weird religious beliefs, we didn't. Because that's us up there.

Criticism of Mitt Romney from the right will probably come out soon because "how could anyone lose to Obama and this economy?" Then the protection of being the front runner of the Republicans will be gone and Republicans won't give Romney a pass on his mormonism any more. We'll see who his true friends are.

The country took a proxy for us as members and did not like what they saw. The nation said no, and now we're all distraught because we were rejected. Now we ought to look more clearly about how we really are and if we are admirable, likable, and nice to people.

Rather than predicting the end of the nation and a rejection of God's favor because the nation rejected a "righteous priesthood holder" maybe to ought to do some introspection into what things we should improve on, and how we can more clearly see ourselves as we really are. To me Romney losing was a relief that other people could see what I saw, and what I see in other people in the church that have caused me quite a lot of grief. I'm glad it's over.

For FHE the other day we talked about how without charity or love you are nothing. I asked the kids if they'd like to be in heaven with a bunch of people that read their scriptures, went to church, said their prayers but were mean. The disgusted look on their faces gave the answer. Or would you rather be with nice, inclusive, and loving people even if they didn't come to church all the time or even were members. I think that's what we should work on instead of righteous indignation.

My Thoughts on the Election

As an independent-- I am glad that Obama won over Romney. I didn't like either candidate, but I think we will have less wars with Obama than we would have had with Romney-- that was the main difference for me. I think Romney lost because he offended a lot of groups of people-- Ron Paul supporters, the London Olympic committee, Nascar racers, 47% of Americans who would never vote Republican, and the list goes on. He got 14 million less votes than McCain because of lower voter turnout.  The Republican base never really liked him, they just hated Obama more.  That was especially true for the South.  It is amazing that that was the best the Republican party could do.  The Primary race was full of lousy candidates-- and they thought Ron Paul was crazy!  He was the best chance against Obama.   I'm glad we have a Republican house to keep President Obama at bay. Although I disagree with Obama's ideology-- he seems like a "nice" guy and says nice things and acted with class throughout the election as far as I could see.

my little girl is 12!

My second little girl turned 12 today!  I can't believe it.  I'm kinda sad to see the little girl era end.  I loved the little dresses and hair bows and cute shoes and dollies and ponies and ribbons and princesses and pink, etc.   She is way excited to be going into Young Women's and I am sad to see her leave primary and all the little girl stuff behind.  The older girl stuff will be fun too I'm sure.  Life always changes and I will miss those little girl times.  There are a lot of little boys in this house.  I took 6 of them shopping today without their sisters and it was quite different.  They were good, but they have no interest in frilly clothes or dolls.  It's cars, trucks and sports time at our house now and for years to come!

Halloween

We had an awesome Halloween.  My kids said tit was the best one ever.  It srated last Friday with our co-op-- we went to a nice pumkin patch for a field trip-- then we drove to Layton and closed on our house-- yay!  Then we had an extended family Halloween party on Sat.  I sewed a monkey costume that morning and sewed on the ears on the way over-- it only took me about an hour to sew and I used another costume for the pattern and I didn't have to unpick anything-- I was very proud of myself.  Anyway, we had a colonial girl, a cat, a monkey, a ninja, iron man, batman, Po from teletubbies and a little lion.  They werre cute, but I don't think we even got a picture of them all together we were so busy just trying to gather up all the pieces and kids we needed for each activity.  Then Monday night we picked out our pumpkins and the kids carved them the next day during school hours.  They really did a nice job and I think we got pictures of those.  Then Wed. was Halloween-- we took the afternoon to decorate the entryway.  I told the kids we weren't going to buy anything new but they could use anything in the house.  We had a bunch of white row cover material that worked perfectly to look like a drop cloth on the stairs banister, and we covered the stairs with white sheets and had some white tulle for the holding rail on the other side.  Then we strung pictures of bats and a scary face the kids made across the ceiling and one of the kids made silhouttes we put in the windows, adn we scattered straw all over the floor, and had a fan going and a black light and a little table with the candy and some cardboard tombstones, and my husband set up speakers all over the entryway with really scary music and some speakers hidden above the candy bowl that he would play some more creepy screams and sounds right when the kids would reach for the candy.  It was a lot of fun.  We had way more tricker treaters here in this new neighborhood than we ever did in the old neighborhood-- I think we had 5 last year and maybe 10 the year before.  So the kids loved it.  We closed shop around 9 and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas.  I forgot about the soup so we had candy for dinner instead.  The kids traded most of it in for screen time minutes.  They played a ton on Friday.  A most successful Halloween!  The best part was the next day when everyone helped clean it all up and the house looked pretty good!  We are going to have to do that again!